Mr. Optimist.

"Let's face the facts. The game is over and we -- the "reality-based community," the believers in genuine democracy and law, the heirs of Jefferson and Madison, Emerson and Thoreau, the toilers and dreamers, all those who seek to rise above the beast within and shape the brutal chaos of existence into something higher, richer and imbued with meaning -- have lost. The better world we thought had been won out of the blood and horror of history -- a realm of enlightenment that often found its best embodiment in the ideals and aspirations of the American Republic -- is gone. It's been swallowed by darkness, by ravening greed, by bestial spirits and by willful primitives who now possess overwhelming instruments of power and dominion."

(no subject)

"Some of America's wealthiest individuals have declined billions of dollars in tax cuts bestowed upon them by President George W. Bush's administration and have urged others among the country's richest and most famous to donate their federal tax cuts to campaigns against the Bush package, often described as ''tax breaks for the rich.''

""It's obscene that Washington is handing out tax breaks to millionaires with one hand and shredding the safety net with the other,'' said Marta Drury, a member of Responsible Wealth, a national network of affluent Americans advocating what they term ''widespread prosperity'' and concerned that a deepening wealth divide in America is undermining the country's social and democratic fabric.

""So I'm calculating my 2004 tax cut and donating it to organizations fighting for responsible, fair, and adequate taxes. I don't believe that people like me with incomes over $200,000 need $69 billion in tax cuts," Drury added, referring to the total estimated value of 2004 tax cuts granted Americans in her income bracket."